The clubhouse is empty.

We knew it would happen. The space was graciously loaned to us by a local mall, and included two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows. We set up in early January, and were told we'd have it for probably a couple of months. So being able to camp out there until the end of May was excellent.

Unfortunately, it gave us a lot of time to pack in a ton of brick. Which had to be packed out again in three days. Ooh, my achin' back.

So that's what it looks like now, more or less. Well, without anything actually in it, now. It was a great place for us members of the Greater Portland LEGO Railroaders to gather weekly. We'd plug somebody's iPod into the booming sound system, crank it to 11, and watch the windows vibrate as we gossiped, built, sorted, ran trains, and showed off to the occasional visitor. We mostly met every Thursday night and knocked back bottles of Henry's Root Beer, the Official GPLR Drink of Choice.

And let us not forget the Cold Stone Creamery right around the corner. A most dangerous establishment for those of us with expand-o-matic waistlines.

We got the notice last Wednesday, just in time to notify everybody they needed to haul butt down to the club and pick up their junk by the end of the weekend. I spent parts of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and a good chunk of Saturday breaking down the displays, packing brick, sorting track back to its respective owners, and cleaning up. With about 6 people doing most of the work, we were able to get out a full day early. The only casualty was when my Imperial Star Destroyer slid off the seat of my pickup and crunched a couple of panels. My oldest kid managed to fix it, mostly - although having pieces left over always make me nervous.

The packing-lifting-hauling-moving-schlepping routine was more exercise than I'd gotten in a while, and with the sudden chills and off-and-on rain, I caught the sniffles Sunday. It's funny, I used to feel guilty about staying home sick. Now that's a thing of the past.

In its heyday, the club had probably two or three hundred thousand bricks worth of MOCs - including my Stargate, a working six-foot-tall Technic crane, and of course a bunch of trains. The Oregon Convention Center was a particular hit, as was the six-foot-long working Roller Coaster.

There are a bunch more pictures here, if anyone's interested.

It was good while it lasted.